Author: neal

  • Complexity and Size

    Smaller isn’t less complex Globalisation is a complex system, that is itself interconnected with other complex systems (financial, geo-political, social, etc.). Ten years ago, back when I lived in France, I remember shopping in a local supermarket store. As any good french (playing on stereotypes), I wanted to buy some onions, but to my surprise,…

  • Mapping Risks

    I’ve been thinking for some time now about the idea of how to map ‘upside’ and ‘downside’ visually. I was originally inspired by Diana Larsen’s ‘Prospective Analysis’ whereby new teams start thinking about a their assumptions and risks and benefits. It’s mapped out like below (taken from ‘Lift Off’ by Diana Larsen and Ashley Nies).…

  • Recruitment and careers

    Recently I applied for a research role and have been interviewing at work which forced me to reflect on standard recruitment practices and the nature of work itself… During the process I managed to both indulge my cynicism and respond with some sincerity to how we might gain some more upside as a ‘recruitee’ and…

  • Antifragility over Permanence

    “If you want to preserve a building, you will try to make it in materials which last and last forever. You will try to make sure that this creation can be preserved intact, in just its present state, forever. Canvas must be ruled out because it has to be replaced; tiles must be so hard…

  • Invest into Antifragile Start ups

    An interesting thread here about how many start ups are going to be laying off staff / downsizing / failing over the next year or so because the expected revenue can not give the return for the sheer amount of seed funding that has gone into funding the start ups.  Basically if 100m has been…

  • Improve your Uncertainty Tolerance

    Breaking through paradigms with uncertainty! “Paradoxically, uncertainty holds potential for both pain and possibility. This potential lies in your uncertainty tolerance. Rather than just the avoidance of pain, uncertainty tolerance opens opportunities reserved for those who embrace the unknown.” From the research, Conniff knows that not only is “uncertainty the number one driver of anxiety,…

  • East India Company & Risk

    The East India Company became one of the largest companies that ever existed and controlled half of all world trade at one point. It’s beginnings (and it’s eventual success) are based on the innovation of risk taking: In 1599 Smythe and his associates had decided that, because of the huge expenses and high risks involved…

  • Capacity for Adaptability

    Whilst watching a documentary about reindeer herders in the Siberian Taiga, the narrator said that the nomads have a ‘high capacity for adaptability’. It might just have been a throw-away comment, but it made a lot of sense and I wondered about it afterwards. Was it true? It was more than being adaptable. What was the…

  • Trading in East Africa

    In a delightful episode of this series (Journeys to the End of the Earth), the photographer, David Adams, joins a crew of dhow sailors as they sail along the East African coast trading from port to port. They have no compass nor maps to rely on, and sail without motor and electricity – just using…

  • Complex Systems, Patterns, Wisdom

    Some extracts from Murray Gell Mann, and how it aligns with some of the themes we’re exploring as part of this community and how, as a community, we can actually thrive in a complex system. ‘Those who study complex adaptive systems are beginning to find some general principles that underlie all such systems, and seeking…